- 5/15/2025
What count as porn.
By
Kashif Mag
By
Kashif Mag
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:01Hey, welcome back for another episode of Porn Brain Rewire with me, Dr. Trish Lee.
00:06We have a really good episode today because I have heard something a few times this morning,
00:14literally, which is why I'm inspired to record this episode.
00:18I have heard people tell me, well, it's really difficult to know where the boundaries of
00:24porn begin and end, the shades of gray, if you will. And I'm like, eh, is it that difficult?
00:32So I'm not kidding. I've had this conversation a few times and it is 1 0 7 PM right now and I'm
00:38recording this. So this is hot off the press because either this is new to me or this is a
00:45new hijacker move that is coming into the minds of people to convince them that there's shades of
00:52gray. So we are going to break down the shades of gray in porn today. And we're going to do that in
00:59a shorter episode, but then in the next episode that I'm about to record directly after the shades
01:06of gray, we are going to talk about the slippery slope back into porn. Because what I hear all the
01:13time from people is, oh, I had a slip or relapse and it just came out of nowhere. And I always stop
01:21people and I say, okay, lovingly, let me stop you there. It did not come out of nowhere. Your
01:27self-awareness might not be high enough right now to know where it came from, but it came from a
01:33slippery slope behavior. So in the next podcast episode, we're going to take the shades of gray
01:39one step further, and we're going to break down the most common slippery slope behaviors, such as
01:46alcohol, quote unquote, PG TV, or just regular screen time, social media, which leads into sexual
01:54media, masturbation, and of course, the shades of gray. So we'll see them there. Just, uh, we'll peek
02:02at them. We're going to break them down here. So stay tuned and make sure you listen to the next
02:05podcast episode, because we're going to dig even deeper with depth and breadth across the slippery
02:12slope of porn. Okay. So shades of gray and porn. Let's break this idea down right now. This is a
02:19total hijacker move, just so you know. And what I mean by that is when you were young, you found
02:25pornography. Pornography made your brain feel really, really good. So if you never found pornography,
02:33there wouldn't be quote unquote shades of gray. The reason your brain is looking for shades of gray
02:39is because if you've committed to not consuming pornography anymore, that hijacker in your brain
02:46who needs the dopamine that you've been giving it for so long from pornography, that hijacker
02:53needs the dopamine. And he will try to find a way that draws within the lines, but pushes your lines
03:02out so that he can get the dopamine hit that he's looking for. And so the way that it plays out is,
03:08you know, maybe this is okay. But stay tuned to the end of this episode, because in your brain hack
03:15strategy for the day, I'm going to share with you how you can know for sure if one of these shades of
03:23gray of media or sexual media or behavior, if it's something that has to go for the time or forever for
03:33you in your porn brain rewire journey. So stay with me because your brain hack strategy is going to let
03:40you know how you know where the line is drawn in what is right now seemingly a continuum of shades
03:48of gray. Okay, so let's go back to the conversation about the hijacker, basically planting the seeds for
03:56a dopamine dependency in your brain, when you're young, undeveloped brain wasn't fully developed.
04:04So the way that it works is when your brain was developing across childhood and adolescence,
04:10basically, there's more slow speed that's creative and imaginative. And as you grow older,
04:16that slow speed reduces and faster, more focus speed and typically anxiety, but that's conversation
04:24for a different day. But typically, the faster speeds will begin to increase as the slower creative
04:32childhood imaginative speeds are decreasing. This is in childhood and adolescence. So if you find porn
04:41during that time, it basically stunts your brain's development so that it never fully makes that
04:48transition into calm focus. Instead, it stays in the mode where it needs more of that unhealthy fantasy
04:58that it was given at that pivotal developmental stage. So you find porn when you're 12. And the arousal level
05:08changes the arousal level that will be needed moving forward in your brain. So here's what I want to
05:17tell you in this very first section of today's podcast episode, your brain performance pattern
05:24changed when you found porn. And you probably felt it. Most people do. It's that ecstatic, flooded,
05:34numbed out, amazing, lit up feeling that you had when you were young. And basically, that feeling was
05:41your brain changing the baseline level of dopamine that would be needed to feel good and to feel
05:50pleasure moving forward. So remember, dopamine is the neurochemical of more motivation and pleasure.
06:00So it motivates you back to more and more higher levels of pleasure, and especially when it changed that
06:07baseline level in your brain when you were young. That's why I call it the seeds of addiction the
06:13first time one or two times that you consume pornography. Because just imagine what your life
06:19might have been like if you didn't find pornography at the time when you did. And that might be an
06:27interesting exercise. It's not our brain hack for today, but an interesting exercise for you to think
06:33about all the time that you spent watching porn after the first time you found it. What else might
06:40you have been doing with that imagination? Or what else might you have been doing to reduce stress and
06:47boredom? It might have been a very different lifestyle. This is style, life situation. And I want to point
06:56that out because it's not your life. It feels like your life. But your life situation or your life style
07:02is what you've developed it to be. And you can always develop it to be something new. That's the beauty
07:09of neuroplasticity. That's the beauty of life. Okay, so, you know, let's just say you're 12, you find porn,
07:17and now it becomes something that you go back to to feel good, to change your mood. Your brain floods with
07:24dopamine, and you used to feel stressed, but now you feel good. It's mood regulation. So this
07:32becomes the tool for mood regulation, primarily for stress, and then for boredom. But the caveat
07:39on boredom is, in today's day and age, your brain is highly overstimulated. So it's not necessarily
07:46bored. It's just not getting the massive amount of stimulation that it's used to getting. So when you
07:53feel bored, it's the desire to get back to the super overstimulated brain that then shifts into that
08:01neutral mode. So porn is an artificial way of shifting your highly overstimulated brain
08:08into neutral. That's why you keep going back. All that dopamine does it for you. Now, you know what
08:15I say, where the problem lies, so does the solution. So, so far, we know that the problem is much too much
08:22dopamine that keeps driving you back. And that it keeps driving you back because of the link to
08:30pornography as the stimulus that shifts you into neutral. So the solution so far is twofold.
08:40Let's reduce the amount of overstimulation in your brain, that wired and tired feeling in the first
08:46place. And if you do that, then there'll be no need to go back into the screen to shift you into
08:53neutral. Okay. But that too is a, is a, an aside for today's conversation, but I want you to understand
09:01why you keep going back into the screen and who that hijacker is. That hijacker is that younger version
09:08of yourself who needs this, who needs his brain shifted into neutral really fast. It is an emotionally
09:16immature way of being able to feel good and to de-stress. So part of the journey is finding
09:24emotionally more mature and healthier ways to cope with stress and boredom while we're reducing the
09:30overstimulation and finding new tools. So that's why when the hijacker tries to trick you with this whole
09:37shades of gray shenanigans, I want you to be able to say, this is just a trick. This is,
09:43is a call for this hijacker to get what he wants. He's trying to bait me back into the behaviors
09:50that he's used to because that hijacker is that younger brain version of myself who just wants to
09:56feel good fast. I had a different conversation with one of my precious children yesterday who she
10:02got into a car accident and her car's jinkety. Honestly, I don't even know how jinkety it is
10:07because the hubs is on it. So I called her and I said, I just want to point out the choice you have
10:15to make right now because she's a young adult. I'm trying to teach her about choice making instead
10:19of telling her what she has to do. So I said, here's what you have to do. Either you get your
10:25car assessed right now and you know what the situation is and you know if it's safe to drive
10:30without it making the problem worse or if you do in fact have to give it up right now, send it into
10:36the shop. Yes, you're going to be without it for right now, but you'll be able to get it fixed before
10:42you get a bigger problem. And this is what I continue to say. It's either a short term, short term
10:50gain with a long term loss or you have to struggle or forego or have a short term sacrifice for a long
11:02term gain. Guess what? She's 18. She took the short term gain, long term sacrifice. It's her choice to
11:10make. But I told her, don't call me and tell me it's five grand to fix your car because you will be
11:18without it longer if you don't have it fixed. So undoubtedly that's going to be the case. But
11:25I'm all about teaching these young adults the consequences of their choices and that's how it
11:30goes. Then you have to emotionally detach. Again, conversation for a different day. But what I want
11:36you to hear me say for you is that's a very immature approach. When she gets a little older and she's not
11:4418 anymore, and especially if she has the experience right now that her car dies and she's without her
11:49car for the semester, she will be making the more adult decision that if you get in an accident, you
11:55have to have your car looked at right away. You have to have it assessed. And yes, you might have to go
12:00without it for a few days, which stinks for every adult on the face of the earth. But then you get it
12:07fixed and your car last longer over time. So that's your choice when it comes to do I go into the screen
12:15for a huge dopamine flood right now and run the risk of it flooding my brain out and keeping my brain
12:22in strained brain, going between wired and tired, dipping my brain into drained brain where I can't think
12:30I can't focus I have brain fog and erectile dysfunction. Those are the choices damaging your
12:37brain by going back in for short term gain, long term loss, or short term sacrifice, long term gain.
12:48The hijacker is that young version of you who can't discern that he wants the quick gain and the
12:56long term situation doesn't matter. The solution is growing that version of yourself up by improving
13:04your brain performance pattern and learning the skills that you need to. So in the future, you can
13:11make that better decision, hopefully today. Okay, so that's the hijacker. Short term gain, long term
13:17doesn't matter. What I want you to know is when you go short term sacrifice and you don't artificially
13:24shift your brain into neutral, it heals. That's why the shades of gray thing that we're going to get
13:30to right now is just baiting you into short term gain, long term doesn't matter. The solution is keep
13:38your eye on the long term goal while you have the skills to not go into these shades of gray screen time
13:46in the short run. Okay, so let's transition to shades of gray. Now, if you've been listening to my
13:53podcast for any amount of time, you have definitely heard me say multiple times, everything in the
13:59whole world exists on a continuum. So everything shades of gray, right? Literally everything,
14:04there's hardly anything black and white in this world. So when we talk about pornography, where does
14:10the line begin? Where does the line end? If we're talking explicit content, anything that's actually
14:18in a porn site is clearly pornography. Anything that would be considered sexual media for dopamine hits
14:26to make you feel good, that is going to be your new marker on what is considered pornography to you.
14:38And so these shades of gray are going to be different for all people. What do they include?
14:43They include YouTube videos that are sexualized. Oh, and if you've seen a couple of my videos here,
14:51some of those videos really, there's not many things that chat my arse, but that's one of them.
14:58When professionals put out videos that are supposed to be professional in nature, but they're just
15:03highly sexualized with young women who are scantily clad. So like, are you there for the professional
15:10advice or are you there for the young scantily clad women? Be honest with yourself. Don't let that
15:17hijacker convince you you're there to learn new yoga moves, or don't let that hijacker convince you
15:25that you really care about that chiropractor adjusting that person. Please. This is when you
15:33grow yourself up with emotional maturity and you increase your self-awareness, which is the first pillar
15:39of emotional intelligence, becoming aware of your own thoughts, your own feelings and your own
15:45behaviors and their driving forces. So we are going to use your emotional intelligence to increase it
15:52here. So videos that are seemingly professional yet highly sexualized. Yeah, they're going to be in
16:00those shades of gray. So the question you're asked, the question to ask yourself is, why am I watching this?
16:07And if you can be honest with yourself, you're doing it for the dopamine hit. That dopamine hit is the
16:15slippery slope of pornography. It's leading you back and likely you're watching it because you've told
16:20yourself or somebody else that you will not watch pornography. That's when these shades of gray really
16:26come into play. And going back to what I told you about the hijacker and how he changes your brain
16:33performance, how porn does. That is the important part because without the hijacker in your mind and
16:40in your brain, there really wouldn't be shades of gray. And I know you can't totally see this because
16:46it's part of the self-awareness, but a person's, a person who has a brain performance pattern that
16:53developed in a very healthy manner would never care enough to go to those videos to consume them
17:02because they don't need the dopamine. The hijacker in your brain needs the dopamine.
17:08And especially if you promised yourself you want to go into porn, the shades of gray is where the
17:13hijacker is going to find the dopamine. So clearly the solution is healing your brain and developing it
17:20fully so that there's no need to go into the shades of gray. But if you do go into the shades of gray,
17:26you're moving your brain backwards. So there's videos on YouTube, social media videos and still
17:34photos. Anything sexualized is going to fall into that sexual media category, even if it's seemingly
17:42innocent. Even the consumption of rated R movies, which wouldn't matter at all to a regulated person
17:51who doesn't have any dysfunction in their brain, a regulated person can watch any movie. The sex scene
17:57comes on, they watch the sex scene. It doesn't flood their brain with dopamine and they move on.
18:03But a person's who, a person whose brain has been wrapped up in a compulsive sexual media mode,
18:10that sex scene comes on and it lights their brain up. We know this from neuroscience, from studies.
18:17So if you have a compulsive pornography habit, your brain's going to light up twice as much
18:23when you consume sexual media. That's what makes it dangerous. So even a rated R movie
18:29could be considered a triggering or pornographic sexual media for a brain that's trying to heal
18:36on its way out of a pornography habit. That's why staying away from any sexual media is really
18:44important to unwire that brain pattern. And once you unwire it, you can see a sex scene in a movie
18:49and your brain doesn't feel the same. But I will tell you, we've talked about this before. There's
18:56a transcription factor in your brain that kind of cements those pathways towards sexual media.
19:02So you definitely don't want to expose yourself to too much of it over time because you will fire
19:08those pathways back up. And that's why staying out of the shades of gray are important.
19:14So the shades of gray can be, you know, even just Victoria's Secret commercials or just searching
19:24online for for lingerie could be considered, you know, quote unquote, shades of gray in pornographic
19:31material. So I'm not going to list them all here, but let's move to your brain hack strategy for the day
19:37so that you can figure it out. Are you ready? Okay. Get your journal out, get your pen out
19:41and think about all of the shades of gray behaviors that you're at risk for doing. Or if that hijacker
19:49has told you shades of gray are okay. And you know, who knows where the line is and this is really fine.
19:55Write those things down, those behaviors and see why you are consuming them. Even, you know,
20:02PG movies with an actress in it that you find highly sexualized. Or like, for example, last week,
20:11when I was on a live on YouTube, there was a gentleman who's reached out to me before about
20:17a certain item of clothing that he finds highly arousing. So if you keep going back to look at
20:24people in that item of clothing, and in his case, it's a puffer jacket, the winter puffer jackets,
20:29which is not a sexualized clothing item in the first place. It became linked to sexualization
20:36in his brain. So now if you keep looking up ads for those puffer coats, what you're doing is
20:45basically bringing yourself back into that shade of gray. It's the hijacker who's tricking you.
20:52That's why you can see it's important to figure out what that is for you. Because your shades of gray
20:58would be completely different from other people's shades of gray, except for when we're talking
21:04about that continuum of sexual media, which is clear that that continuum exists from porn sites
21:11to non porn sites that are highly sexualized, only fans, sexual media, those types of things
21:18rated art movies to PG movies, all the way down to just a commercial with a sexualized person.
21:25So we've got the continuum, it does exist. I'm not saying it doesn't exist. But what I'm saying is
21:31it's the dopamine within it that's important to you. And so recognize that that continuum is the
21:38slippery slope for you back into finding dopamine in the screen. That's why it's important, because
21:46we're going to increase your self awareness. Then the second pillar of emotional intelligence
21:51is increasing your ability to self regulate from within. So instead of having to go to the screen,
21:58even if you're just going to these shades of gray behaviors or consuming shade of gray, you know, social
22:06media, we'll just say sexual media, you don't have to do that anymore. Instead, you take a shower. Instead, you
22:14go work out. Instead, you go ride your motorcycle. Instead, you go kick around your soccer ball.
22:20Instead, you paint. Instead, you play your guitar. These are all healthy ways to self regulate.
22:27Instead of self regulating externally with something unhealthy.
22:33Then the third pillar of emotional intelligence is social relationship awareness, being aware of other
22:40people and their needs and how you're kind of vibing back and forth off of each other, and then social
22:46relationship management and regulation. So these skills in terms of emotional intelligence are leading
22:53you towards being able to regulate yourself within the context of your relationship that you can manage
22:59for a lifestyle, a life situation of integrity that you're able to rock out at the highest levels
23:07with the healthiest brain performance pattern. That is what I want for you. That's why the shades of gray
23:14is a bunch of blarney. It's just designed for the hijacker to lead you back to what you want
23:24instead of what you need moving in the right direction. Okay. If you want more information on this,
23:32please go over to drtrishlee.com. I offer a self paced, self guided 90 day program in the 90 day
23:40program. Basically I teach you and there's lessons and exercises in the unwire section, which is the
23:46first section of the program for you to be able to move through a process to figure out what all of the
23:53shades of gray are for you so that you can become fully aware of them and use specific techniques and
24:01tools to not be pulled back into them. That's how you're successful at moving forward in this
24:07process. You have to unwire that link in your brain back to those behaviors or back to that media or back
24:15to that, whatever you're consuming to get the dopamine to make you feel good. It has to be unlinked.
24:21Then you can rewire your brain towards the healthy optimal mode, which maybe you've never experienced.
24:27So remember the shades of gray exist because your brain wants them to and needs them to.
24:34And when the pull of that is broken, then you are able to rewire your brain and basically develop it
24:41and grow it up into the healthiest version of itself. And then lastly, in the hardwire section of
24:47that program, I teach you how to manage stress and boredom long-term so that you're never at risk
24:54for going back to the slippery slope of these shades of gray behaviors. Okay. I hope that
25:00helps. So go on over Dr. Trish Lee, check out Porn Brain Rewire digital programs. And as always,
25:07until next time, control your brain or it'll control you.
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